But We Were Right About the Haircut

Simon seemed fine when I picked him up from science camp on Wednesday: cheery and chatty, full of stories about the day, touting several new ways to fashion rubber-band guns out of his own phalanges, along with a few ideas for unheard-of electric machines. The drive home was a bit long (Seattle Center to Seward Park at 4:30 pm is never quick no matter what route you take) but not unpleasant -- the air conditioning was working, pretty much, and Kevin Cole had a fine groove going on KEXP. Simon even remembered to grab a yogurt out of the fridge when we arrived at the house, a habit we have encouraged because it tends to stave off the hunger-induced meltdowns that have complicated many a cocktail hour at our house.

So I was a bit surprised to hear him howling in frustration a few minutes later -- apparently the switch he had tried to build for the tiny electric motor they gave him at camp wasn't functioning as expected. This is not an unusual scenario, of course; we are well versed in initial failure as a path to eventual success. But Simon seemed to have forgotten this maxim, and instead of trying again, or even seeking assistance, he was sitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of a tangle of wires and alligator clips, completely undone.

Before I could get out from under the several urgent tasks I was juggling in order to intervene in some (likely useless) way, he had melted down all over again -- this time in the middle of a dispute with Josie, who had refused to take off her headphones and turn up the sound on "Community" so he could watch it with her. Again, we are not strangers to this sort of squabble, but it doesn't usually come to blows. Still tied up with the backlog of laundry and apple sauce (our tree is going gangbusters this year and it takes all we've got to keep up), I offered a few pointed words of advice to each of them about how they might approach the conflict more constructively, then dashed back down to the basement to throw a few crucial articles of rollerderby attire into the washing machine -- only to be stopped in my tracks by a blood-curdling scream.

Simon had shot himself in the eye with his forearm-based rubber band sniper rifle. After determining that the injury, while clearly painful, wasn't likely to lead to permanent disfigurement or loss of depth perception, I sat on the floor with him wondering, Oh baby, what next? Josie sat at the computer glaring at her brother as if convinced it was all an act designed to interrupt her television time... So I told her to go set the table. She swept out of the room in a huff, knocking a heavy drinking glass off the table onto the floor, where it shattered.

I won't detail every mishap that befell our poor boy in the three hours that followed... Or -- what the hell -- maybe I will:

• He jammed his finger on a piece of pvc pipe while clearing the contents of the electricity kit off the kitchen floor, under (misguided) duress. 
• He decided he no longer likes quesadillas (normally an absolutely safe dinner choice, and one we had made with his fragile state in mind).
• He was subjected to extreme parental pressure regarding the necessity of a haircut.
• He overturned his bowl of ice cream as soon as it was handed to him.
• He fell down the stairs in his pajamas, while on an unauthorized mission to obtain a (second) glass of milk before bed.
• He was forced to sit through two thirds of "National Lampoon's Vacation."

 This last torment was inflicted with the best of intentions, honestly: we figured a family movie after dinner might cheer everyone up and heal over some of the rawer schisms that had developed in the pre-dinner hour. And somehow our film selection committee passed up both "The Iron Giant" and "Big" in favor of this 1983 Harold Ramis classic. Simon was skeptical -- he was pushing for "Big" -- but the rest of us insisted. "No, you'll love it!" we cried. "It's funny! It's about a family going on a road trip -- just like we'll be doing in a couple weeks! It's got Chevy Chase! It's got Anthony Michael Hall! John Hughes wrote it! You'll love it, we promise!"

Well, there were a few laughs here and there -- the vibrating bed, okay, yes -- but after a while it got harder and harder to see what was supposed to be so goddamn funny about this ghastly sequence of racial stereotypes, white trash jokes, incest references, animal cruelty, scatology, and recurrent appearances by a cringeworthy Christie Brinkley in a red Ferrari.

I had heard that "Vacation" is based on an actual vacation John Hughes's family took when he was a kid. This turns out not to be true (Thank God!), but it gave the whole thing an added layer of tragedy -- did his aunt really die in their car? -- and made me think of the stories my grandfather and his sisters used to tell about the epic road trip their parents took them on when they were young.

I may not have the details right (feel free to leap in with corrections, Dad) but legend has it that the Woodwards left Chester, Nebraska in the summer of 1924 with six kids aged five to nineteen in the back of their Model T Ford. They toured the West for six weeks, camping out of the car, which had been modified so it included extra seating and storage, plus fold-out tables that hinged off the sides.

Some of the tales about this journey are funny -- like the one about my five-year-old grandfather catching a glimpse of his older sister changing into her bathing costume at Great Salt Lake and telling his mother, "Hazel has two of the biggest mosquito bites I've ever seen!" Others are frightening -- like the time my great-grandfather decided to feed a Yellowstone grizzly bear some cherries, and got his hand chomped on pretty good -- a potentially life-threatening injury in the days before antibiotics. But silly or scary, the stories were recounted as though they were hilarious -- even the one about the morning they were all sitting around eating their breakfast oatmeal, and by the time the cream pitcher got passed along to the mother (my great-grandmother), it was empty... And she burst into tears.

I'm absolutely sure that trip was one of the high points of those kids' lives -- I know Norma, the youngest sister, always lamented the fact that she was born three years after it happened.  I'm also sure they all recognized the unfunny aspects of some of their tales. But there's some human instinct -- isn't there? -- some kind of Darwinian coping mechanism that kicks in when things get miserable: it's like a switch flips inside you, and you start finding each new disaster more hilarious than the one before.

Up to a point, of course: if my great-grandfather's grizzly bite had proved fatal, his daughters would not have played the story for laughs years later. But that line -- between misery-gone-comic and actual, unbearable tragedy -- isn't always clear, or stable. I suppose that for people munching popcorn in movie theaters in 1983, or adolescents downing pizza late at night in front of the VCR, "Vacation" might steer clear of that line, or maybe just graze it. But for us last night, the warning signs first flickered on when the pretty cousin announced, "My daddy says I'm the best french kisser!" and started flashing red with alarm bells when the dog got dragged to death behind the car -- or decapitated by the leash, it's implied. When the Griswolds discovered that their elderly aunt had died in the back seat of the car, Simon had had more than enough.

He stood up. "I'm going upstairs. This is terrible!" There was an awkward pause -- while onscreen the metallic pea-green station wagon rolled into town in the pouring rain with the aunt's corpse strapped to the roof. Then we had to admit, "You're right, Simon. It is!" We turned off the TV and went upstairs for ice cream.

Simon's misfortunes didn't exactly abate after this, but somehow the whole aborted movie experience had flipped the switch on his disastrous evening, pushing it through from misery to comedy (but not all the way to tragedy).  Bedtime found Josie and I escorting a whimpering Simon down the hall like bodyguards -- me hovering over him, arms outstretched to fend off danger, Josie running interference ahead of us in a rollerderby crouch, steering him clear of pictures that might fall off the wall and hit him on the head, toys and books he might trip on, an overflowing laundry basket he might tumble into, a houseplant clearly getting ready to pounce, and so on.

We tucked him safely into bed, kissed him on the cheek, and gave him three cheers for being the guy who called it like he saw it, even in the face of peer pressure from those of us who were gamely trying to see some clothes on this stark naked Emperor. "You were totally right; we were totally wrong. Next time we're trying to get you to try something and we say, 'You'll love it, we promise!' you can just roll your eyes and say, 'Hello? "Vacation"?'" 

(But honey, don't you think we were right about the haircut?)